PBLICAN BOOKS

BUDDHISM

Christmas Humphreys, born in London in 1901, is the descenaant-of a line of lawyers. He was called to the Bar on leaving Cambridge, and in due course became Senior Prosecuting Counsel at the Old Bailey, like his father before himHe sat as a Circuit Judge from 1968 until his retiFemetfrfu 1976.

Interested in Buddhism at an early age, in 1924 he founded the Buddhist Society, London, which is now the oldest and largest Buddhist organization in Europe. As publisher to the Society, he has been responsible for its wide rMt-ge of publications, includinK.six of his own. His interest is in world Buddhism as distinct from any of its various Schools, and he believes that only in a combination of all Schools can the full grandeur of Buddhist thought be found. In 1945 he expressed the consensus of such doctrines in the now famous 'Twelve Principles of Buddhism' which, already translated into fourteen languages, are in process of being accepted as the basis of world Buddhism. In 1962 he was made Vice-President of the Tibet Society, and Joint Vice-Chairman of the Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society.

BOOKSBYTHBSAMBAUTHORINCLUDB

Concentration and Meditation Studies in the Middle Way

Karma and Rebirth Walk On! Via Tokyo

Thus Have I Heard Zen Buddhism

A Buddhist Students Manual The Way of Action Zen Comes West

The Wisdom of Buddhism A Popular Buddhist Dictionary

Zen, a Way of Life Sixty Years of Buddhism in England

A Western Approach to Zen Exploring Buddhism

BUDDHISM

CHRISTMAS HUMPHREYS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesel Christmas Humphreys, 1951

Made and printed in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd,

London, Reading and Fakenham Set in Monotype Times

Except in the United States of America this book is sold subject to the condition

that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise cireulated

without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is

published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed

on the snbsequent purchaser

TO THE BUDDHIST SOCIETY, LONDON

ON THE OCCASION OF ITS SIL VER lUBILEE

19 NOVEMBER 1949

Contents

Preface 9 Introduction 11

1. The Life of the Buddha 25 2. The Ministry 34 3. The Rise of the Two Schools 45 4. The Spread of Buddhism 60 5. Theravada Buddhism I: The Three Signs of Being 78 6. Theravada Buddhism II: The Four Noble Truths 90 7. Theravada Buddhism ill: Karma and Rebirth 97 8. Theravada Buddhism IV: The Noble Eightfold

Path 108 9. Theravada Buddhism V: The Four Paths and the

Goal 119 10. The Sangha 132 11. Some Mahayana Principles 143 12. The Bodhisattva Ideal and the Pure Land Schools 158 13. Schools of the Mahayana 167 14. Zen Buddhism 179 15. Tibetan Buddhism 16. The FruitS of Buddhism 17. Buddhism To-day Appendix I. The Buddhist Scriptures Appendix II. Pansil Glossary General Bibliography Index

189 205 220 233 240 242 247 253

List of Plates

1. Standing Buddha of red sandstone. Mathura, India. Fifth century

2. Buddha Head of grey sandstone. Khmer. Tenth century 3. Kwan-Yin. Wood. Sung Dynasty of China 4. The Druoutsu at Kamakura, Japan. Bronze. A.D. 1252 S. Seated Buddha in the Shrine of the Buddhist Society,

London. Burmese gold-lacquered wood 6. Bodhidharma. Japanese ivory. Nineteenth century 7. The Temple at Buddha Gaya, North India 8. Todai-Ji, Nara, Japan 9. The Shwe Dagon Pagoda, Rangoon, Burma

10. The Temple of the Tooth, Kandy, Ceylon 11. The Potala, Lhasa, Tibet 12. Professor D. T. Suzuki and two Abbots, Kyoto, Japan 13. (a) Colonel H. S. Olcott. (b) The Anagarika Dharmapala 14. (a) The Bhikkhu Ananda Metteya. (b) The Yen. Tai-Hsii 15. (a) Miss Constant Lounsbery. (b) Mme David-Neel 16. The Bhikkhu U Thittila and the Author

Preface, THE ideal author of this work would have a considerable knowledge of each part of the subject, be impartial in respect of all of them, and be able to see and to present the vast system as an integrated whole. No such person exists. There are experts in Theravada or Southern Buddhism; in the Mahayana or Northern Buddhism; in Tibetan Buddhism; on Buddhist Art and on Zen. But these are scholars working for the most part each in a limited sphere, and few if any of them know the condition of Buddhism in the world to-day. To compress the essence of all these subjects, in their due proportion, into a volume of this size is a bold ideal and a consummation easy to be missed .

. My own qualifications are few. I have no knowledge of oriental languages, and therefore rely upon translations, yet as I belong to no one School of Buddhism I can study the whole dispassionately, and have done so for some thirty years. Of Buddhism in the world to-day I know more than most, and of Buddhism in the West as much as any man, having been the active President of the Buddhist Society, London, from its foundation in 1924.

Of these qualifications the practical experience is paramount. Any writer who studied the books the Bibliography could tell of the bones of Buddhism; only a Buddhist can reveal its life. As Dr J. B. Pratt says in his Preface to The Pilgrimage of Buddhism: 'To give the feeling of an alien religion it is necessary to do more than expound its concepts and describe its history. One must catch its emotional undertone, enter sympathetically into its sentiments, feel one's way into its symbols, its cult, its art, and then seek to impart these things not merely by scientific exposition but in all sorts of indirect ways.' This is true, and a book on Buddhism should be subject to this test. Not that Buddhism is an emotional religion. Indeed, by the usual tests, it is not a religion so much as a spiritual philosophy whose attitude to life is as cool and objective as that of the modern scientist. But it lives, it lives tremendously, and is not, as the West is apt to regard it as, a museum specimen. To the hundreds of millions who are joyously treading to-day the Eightfold Way to Enlightenment it is the essence of life itself, and only by living it

10 PREFACE can its truths be known. He who writes of it, therefore, should have studied its principles and have loved and lived them too.

No attempt has been made to place Buddhism in the field of comparative religion, for if all comparisons are odious those between religions cause the greatest odium. Here is Buddhism; let those who wish to compare it with anything else make their own comparison.

I am grateful to those who have helped me so generously. To Miss I. B. Homer, Hon. Secretary of the Pali Text Society, who has read the chapters on the Theravada and made innumerable suggestions; to Dr E. J. Thomas of Cambridge, who has done the same for the chapters on the Mahayana; to the Bhikkhu U Thittila who checked what I had to say on the Sangha, and as Librarian of the Buddhist Society. London, helped me to make the best use of its Library; to Dr Reginald Le May who checked my chapter on Buddhist Art; to Mr R. E. W. Iggleden for help with the Mahayana Canon, and to Mr R. J. Jackson, who became a practising Buddhist in 1905, for checking my account of the Buddhist movement in England. Yet, though I have the approval of these and other scholars for most of my facts, the responsibility for

#

their collation and my views upon them is entirely my own. The illustrations were difficult to choose, and have been col

lected from all over the world. Many 'of the photographs are my own; others were taken by Mr Frederick Page of objects or photographs in my own or in the Buddhist Society's collection. For the Chinese Kwan-Yin I must thank Sir Geoffrey and Lady Burton. Mr C. Jinarajadasa, President of the Theosophical Society, sent me the photograph of Colonel Olcott; Miss Constant Lounsbery and Mme David-Neel provided their own at my request, and the snapshot of the Bhikkhu U Thittila and myself was taken in my London garden by Mr Colin Wyatt.

Some of these chapters have appeared in whole or in part in various periodicals, and I am grateful to the Editors of the Aquarian Path, the Aryan Path, the Hibbert Journal, Rider's Review and the Theosophist for permission to reproduce the parts already published.

Finally, I am deeply grateful to Miss Amy Bedwell and Miss Angela Clare for their patient typing, and to my wife for her , magnificent support of an author attempting the impossible.

St John's Wood, 19 November 1949 T. C. H.

Introduction

WHAT IS BUDDHISM? In one sense it is man's understanding of the Teaching of Gautama, the Buddha; in another it is the religion-philosophy which has grown about that Teaching. To describe it is as difficult as describing London. Is it Mayfair, Bloomsbury, or the Old Kent Road? Or is it the lowest common multiple of all these parts, or all of them and something more? In the Udana, one of the Scriptures of the Theravada or Hinayana School of Buddhism, is recorded the parable of the Elephant. A number of wandering philosophers living near the Buddha had become noisy about their several views, and some of the Buddhist Bhikkhus, or members of the Order, described their behaviour to the AllEnlightened One. He listened and then gave them the parable. In former times a Raja sent for all the blind men in his capital and placed an elephant in their midst. One man felt the head of the elephant, another an ear, another a tusk, another the tuft of its tail. Asked to describe the elephant, one said that an elephant was a large pot, others that it was a winnowing fan, a ploughshare, or a besom. Thus each described the elephant as the part which he first touched, and the Raja was consumed with merriment. Thus', said the Buddha, are those wanderers who, blind, unseeing, knowing not the truth, yet each maintain that it is thus and thus.'

Buddhism is in fact a family of religions and philosophies, but which of its parts is right' or original' is opinion added to objective fact. The Buddha himself wrote nothing, and none of his Teaching was written down for at least four hundred years after his death. We therefore do not know what the Buddha taught, any more than we know what Jesus taught; and to-day at least four Schools, with sub-divisions in each, proclaim their own view as to what is Buddhism. The oldest and probably nearest to the original teaching is the Theravada (the Doctrine of the Elders), and this tp-day is the religion of Ceylon, Burma, Siam, and Cambodia. The Mahayana (large Vehicle) includes the rest of the Buddhist world. But the peculiarities of Tibetan Buddhism, which covers Tibet and its neighbours, Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal, are so

12 INTRODUCTION

marked that though it is part of the Mahayana it may be considered a School on its own, and the same applies to the Zen School of Japan, which is utterly different from any other School of Buddhism or from any other religionphilosophy.

The range of Buddhism is enormous. In time it covers 2,500 years; in space it covers the Theravada countries already described, the Mahayana countries of Tibet and its neighbours, and Mongolia, China, Korea and Japan, though China is not, in the sense that the others are, a Buddhist country. Buddhism is therefore to be found to the North, East and South of its parent country, India, while in the West its influence, first felt in Roman times, is growing rapidly to-day.

Its range of subject is no less vast, and it is in fact the most comprehensive and profound school of spiritual achievement known to history. Those who consider it simple, or to be expressed in a few brief words, have never studied it. In its earliest form it included the finest moral philosophy then known to man, with a range of mind-development and pioneer psychology second to none. In its developed form it includes religion, advanced philosophy, mysticism, 'metaphysics, psychology, magic and ritual; the triple Yoga of India - intellectual, devotional, and the way of action - and its own unique contribution to human achievement, Zen. In every country it raised the indigenous culture, and in China and Japan produced the greatest art of each ,country. Indeed, the art of the T'ang Dynasty of China, often described as the finest in the world, was largely Buddhist art, while throughout the East it has set such a standard of tolerance, gentleness, and a love of nature and the lower forms of life, that in religious history, where these virtues have not been prominent, it stands supreme.

The field of Buddhism may be considered in three concentric circles; the original Message, its development, and additions to it. Considering first the additions, all arise from the excess of tolerance which Buddhism displayed from the first. As it gently flowed into country after country, whether of a higher or lower culture than its own, it tended to adopt, or failed to contest the rival claims of, the indigenous beliefs, however crude. In this way the most divers and debased beliefs were added to the corpus of' Buddhism'. and embarrass

INTRODUCTION 13

the student to-day. Thus in Ceylon, Burma and Siam the worship of nature-spirits continues side by side with the later teaching, while in China and Japan the Confucian, Taoist and Shinto beliefs have modified the entering stream of Buddhism. Still more has the indigenous Bon religion of Tibet corrupted Tibetan Buddhism, itself already mixed with Hindu Tantric practices.

Several of the additions, however, Came from internal' weakness, and might be described as degenerations as distinct from developments. Thus the excessive worship of the written word, so striking a feature of Buddhism in Ceylon,

_ as also the 'popular' form of Shin Buddhism in Japan, whereby the formal repetition of an act of faith suffices for personal redemption, are alike quite alien to the spirit of the earlier School.

A third type of addition comes from later grafting, such as the Tantric ingredients in the Mahayana Buddhism which entered Tibet in the seventh century, and the development of a priestcraft which claims to be essential to the layman's spiritual life.

It is far more difficult to distinguish between the Message and its development, for such a distinction implies a measure of certainty as to the Message. But what are the authorities by which to judge? The first, of course, is the Pali Canon of the Southern or Theravada School, but how much of this is in the form in which it was written down in the first century B.C., and how much of that was a fair rendering of the Master's words? These are matters on which no scholar would dare to dogmatize. Yet the pioneer work of the late Mrs Rhys Dayids, who submitted the Pali Canon to a 'higher criticism', has made it clear that the Buddha's origi nal message to mankind was cast in positive form. The positive Mandate recoverable in fragments from the somewhat emasculated and negative remainder shows, as common sense would expect, that his Teaching was a call to the More oUife, not to the ending of it, and not to the running away from a relative and imperfect world. The ephemeral self must die, so much is clear; but what shall attain salvation, become enlightened, reach Nirvana, when this unreal, separative, misery-causing self is dead? The answer is man.

What else exists in the way of 'authority'? Some of the

14 INTRODUCTION

Chinese Agamas are translations of Sanskrit works as old as much of the Pali Canon, but the Sutras of the Mahayana School, though put into the Buddha's mouth, are clearly,the work of minds which lived from three to seven hundred years after his passing. There remains the esoteric tradition, none the less potent, none the less reliable for the fact that it is nowhere, in more than fragments, written down. The Theravada, the Southern School of the Pali Canon, ignores the story in the Samyutta Nikaya of the simsapa leaves. Which were the more numerous, the Buddha asked his disciples, taking a handful of leaves from the forest floor, the leaves in his hand or those in the forest about him? The reply being given, he explained that such was the relation of the truths which he had revealed to those which he knew but had not revealed. Of all his knowledge he taught, he said, only those things which conduced to the holy life, to peace of mind, to the finding of Nirvana. Ignoring this, the Theravadins cling to a single phrase in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, to the effect that the Buddha was not one who had the closed fist of a teacher who kept some things back, an obvious reference to his major task on earth, to make available to all mankind the principles of the Wisdom which the Brahmans had hitherto preserved as their tight monopoly.

The Mahayana School has no such doubts or differences. All its sects admit the distinction between truths available -to all and those power-producing secrets which are taught only by word of mouth from guru to chelas as the latter prove, by their moral character, worthy to be given them. The mathematician who lectured a class of children on the Integral Calculus would be a fool; in matters of spiritual knowledge the last word lies with the Tao Te Ching: 'He who speaks does not know; he who knows does not speak.'

In fact, the search for Buddhist authority is always vain. 'Do not go by hearsay', said the Buddha in his famous advice to the Kalamas, 'nor by what is handed down by others, nor by what is stated on the authority of your traditional teachings. Do not go by reasons, nor by inference, nor by arguments as to method, nor by reflection on and approval of an opinion, nor out of respect, thinking a recluse must be deferred to . . .' What, then, is the test? The Sutta quoted, like most of the Pali Canon, first gives the answer negatively. 'When these teachings, followed out and put into practice,

INTRODUCTION 15

conduce to loss and suffering - then reject them.'l Or, in modern parlance; see if they work ; if so, accept them.

In the absence of authority there are three ways to decide what is Buddhism. The first is eclectic, whereby the individual selects those portions of the Teaching which suit his immediate needs and makes them his own. A second and more satisfactory method is to find by elaborate study the common ground between the multiple Schools and sects and to express the result in,general principles. A far more difficult method, and thai which I have humbly attempted here, is to take the whole field of Buddhism for study, and then to distil, with the aid of intuitive thought and much meditation, a picture, however incomplete, of Buddhism, as distinct from any one School or part of it. This implies, it is true, a personal Buddhism, in the sense of a personal understanding of Buddhism. Why not? Buddhism, like any other form of relative truth, must vary with the individual, and grow for him with his individual growth. Only the Buddha fully understood 'Buddhism '!

Such study shows that Buddhism may be compared to a net, a net of principles, life-tendencies, knots in the flow of life, vortices of force called matter. For life is motion and life is one. Pick up a knot of the net, therefore, and the rest of the net comes with it. One's choice of eternal principles for a brief yet sweeping survey of the field of Buddhism is a choice among these 'ganglia'. When I essayed this method seven Principles emerged. The first three, as I noticed, having chosen them, were universal in scope. The second three applied to the individual man, and the seventh enclosed the six in the circle of unity. In these, I believe, all Buddhism is somewhere to be found, for a symbol, if it be true, can be read on many planes - 'the casket of Truth has seven keys'. Yet this is at best a tentative chart to the ocean of Buddhism; only the study of many a book and profound meditation on every part of t will provide the flavour of a single drop. 1 . The Buddha's Enlightenment

The Buddha was the Buddha because he was Buddha, Awakened, Enlightened, made Aware. Bodhi, Wisdom, acquired by the faculty of Buddhi, the intuition, the power of direct dynamic spiritual awareness, has many names and

1. From Woodward, Some Sayings a/the Buddha, p. 283.

16 INTRODUCTION

many degrees of achievement. Satori, the spiritual experience of Zen Buddhism, and Samadhi, the last step on the Noble Eightfold Path, are steps on the way to it; Nirvana (pall: Nibbana) is its human goal. Yet beyond lies Parinirvana, for Buddhism is a process of becoming, and admits no conceivable end.

The Buddha's Enlightenment is therefore the womb, the heart and raison d' etre of Buddhism. It is the criterion of all Buddhist teaching that it conduces or does not conduce to the achievement of Enlightenment. Bodhi, the Maha Bodhi or supreme Wisdom, is the purpose of all study, of all morality, of all attempts at self-development. It is for this that the false and separative self is slain and the true Self steadily developed; it is the sole end of all progress on the Eightfold Path; it is the Buddh in Buddhism.

There are infinite degrees in this development, from a 'bright idea' when a faculty greater than reasoning breaks through into the cage of a concept-ridden mind, to Parinirvana - and Beyond. The Buddha achieved (and hence his title) supreme Enlightenment, yet his victory was not unique. Buddhas before him had opened the Thousand-petalled Lotus to its perfect flowering; there are Buddhas to come. In the end each living thing will achieve Enlightenment. It is therefore the hope and the promise of Buddhism, and all study and attempted practice which loses sight of this ultimate, supreme experience may be useful, but is not Buddhism ..

2. Mind-Only In the beginning is the One, and only the One is. From the

One comes Two, the innumerable Pairs of Opposites. But . there is no such thing as two, for no two things can be con

ceived without their relationship, and this makes Three, the basic Trinity of all manifestation. From the three (or its six permutations and integrating seventh) come the manifold things of 'usual life' which the Chinese call the Ten Thousand Things. These are unreal in a world of unreality, comparatively real in a world of comparative reality, Real in that each is part of an ultimate, unmanifest Reality. As Reality must be, if anything is, supremely Enlightened, this faculty of supreme Enlightenment informs all things, though none of them owns it. It alone is Real.

From the viewpoint of the centre all phenomena or things

INTRODUCTION 17

are falsely imagined; from the viewpoint of the circumference they are real. 'Our Essence of Mind is intrinsically pure', said the Patriarch Hui-neng. 'All things are only its manifestations, and good, deeds and evil deeds are only the result of good thoughts and evil thoughts respectively.'l Imagination, thought and will make deeds, and by our deeds we make ourselves. 'All that we are is the result of our thoughts; it is founded on our thoughts, made up of our thoughts. '2

To the Buddhists, therefore, all weight and emphasis is on the mind, and none on circumstance. 'Our mind should stand aloof from circumst3.nces, and on no account should we allow them to influence the function of our mind.'8 All value and all valuation lies in the mind.

Anicca, change, impermanence which, applied to the 'soul', is Anatta, the doctrine of the impermanence of the separative ego; when taken to its' logical conclusion produces the doctrine of Sunyata, the Void. All manifested things, when analysed and taken to pieces, are found to lack continuous form or unchanging substance. As all is Mind, Mind-Only, all things, all compounds, are Sunya, Void of ultimate content, a truth which has had profound effect on the finest of Buddhist art. All things are One and have no, life apart from it; the One is all things and is incomplete without the least of them. Yet the parts are parts within the whole, not merged in it; they are interfused with Reality while retaining the full identity of the part, and the One is no less One for the fact that it is a million-million parts. Such is the Jijimuge doctrine of the Kegon School of Japanese Buddhism. Understood, it destroys all false antitheses. The world of distinction is seen to be falselY imagined; discrimination falls away. In application, 'there is nothing infinite apart from finite things " naught holY' or profane. There is neither here nor there, for all is always Here; there is neither now nor then, for all is Now; there is neither this nor that, still less' a fusion of this and THAT, for there is only This. in a here and now. To the Buddhist the moment alone is of supreme importance; all speculation, therefore, all conceptual belief is valueless until made real. Pull out the

1. The Sutra of Wei Lang (Hui-neng), p. 59. 2. The Dammapada,verse 1. 3. The Sutro' of Wei Lang (Hui-neng). p. 49.

18 INTRODUCTION

arrow, said the Perfect One, and do not delay with enquiries as to its length and provenance, nor the name and tribe of the man who shot it. Now is the moment of salvation, of the making an end of suffering. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof', and its undoing.

Life is a bridge - build no house upon it; a river - cling not to its banks nor to either of them; a gymnasium - use it to develop the mind on the apparatus of circumstance; a journey - take it, and a1k on! The 'passing show' is to be used, and neither enjoyed nor ignored, for behind the show is only mind, Mind-Only. There are some to whom the thought of the Void is frightening; their eyes are as yet short-focused on the road ahead and they cannbt see the Goal. It is hard indeed to focus on infinity, and all men have at times preferred to gaze upon something, albeit a Mindprojected Thing, just so much ahead of them, and not too far. Hence thoughts of God and gods, of Saints and Saviours. They exist, and do not exist; they are thoughts within an ultimate and sole-existing Mind. Hence Amida, for some Buddhist minds the abstract Essence of the All-Enlightened One, and the cult which calls upon his Name; hence the Trikaya, the three Bodies of the Buddha, by which on the successive planes of matter the One is manifest. And yet, 'Be still and know that I am God.' The Void is a PlenumVoid; the Void is already full. It is filled with Tao or Zen or Life or Light. These names are noises, man-made noises for the Infinite. 'The Light is within thee', said the Egyptian Hierophants; 'let the Light shine.'

3. Interrelation To the Buddhist all forms of life, being manifestations of

one life, are interrelated in a complex web beyond our full conceiving. The 'Pairs of Opposites' are modes of the ultimate antithesis of Being and not-Being and are infinite in number; all the parts and the whole are related in the uttermost 'interdiffusion' of Jijimuge. The Mahayana stands, it is said, upon the twin pillars of Wisdom (PrajTia) and Compassion (Karuna), of Law which manifests as justice, and Love which proves as mercy. Yet ' Love is the fulfilling of the Law', and like the light and darkness, male and female, life and form, the two are ultimately and, if the truth were known, immediately One.

INTRODUCTION 19

The interrelation is absolute and intrinsic. Cause and effect are one, though we see the two sides of the coin in the relative illusion of time. For causation is only interrelation expanded into the 'past', 'present', and 'future' for convenience of our understanding, and is only one mode of interrelation. Yet for us it may be the most important. It has been said that the Buddha-Dhamma was well expressed in the mighty phrase which, offered at second-hand by the Bhikkhu Assaji to the Brahman Moggallana, opened in the latter 'the eye of the everlasting', and brought him in a flash to Enlightenment. 'Of all things springing from a cause, the Tathagata hath shown the cause, and also its ceasing.' Such is the formal plan of the Universe, an infinite interrelation of parts including but never limited by causation. There is no First Cause; no ultimate End. Manifestation, so long as it endures, is a Wheel of Becoming, and all 'selves' within it are bound upon that Wheel. We are what we are and are incomplete, unhappy, filled with suffering. The cause of that misery is desire; the cause of desire is ignorance, the old illusion of self, the belief that the part can pit its separate self against the will and welf.are of the whole.

For the law of the Wheel is love. If life be one, compassion is the rule of it, a 'feeling with ' all forms of it by the littlest part. 'Compassion is no mere attribute. It is the Law of laws - eternal Harmony, Alaya's SELF; a shoreless universal essence, the light of everlasting Right, and fitness of all things, the law of love eternal. '1 All who love are healers of those in need of it. Hence the doctrine of the turning over of merit. There is no monopoly in the effects of a deed; it affects for good or ill all manifested things. Mind gave it birth; it ripples out to the margin of the universe, and then flows back to the mind which gave it birth; and this too is Mind-Only. Each must perfect himself, his own brief vortex in the flow of life; each is responsible for the changing complex of attributes called Self which grows only as the craving 'ego' dies. 'Work out your own salvation', said the Buddha, 'with diligence.' How? It is immaterial. All means (upaya) belong to the unreal world of duality; the mountain peak is indifferent to the path by which men climb. There is the soft way of Shin Buddhism, or Bhakti Yoga, of devotion to the Beloved Ideal which the mind, fearing as yet the Void,

1. The Voice oj Ihe Silence.

20 INTROD UCTION

creates for its following; there is the harder road of the Theravada, with its Right Understanding (Jnana Yoga) and Right Action (Karma Yoga); there is the hardest because the straightest road of Zen, the Yoga of the will, the direct road up the mountain-side. Meanwhile, for the vast majority of men there is no road at all, only the drift of suffering minds which, blinded still by Avidya (Ignorance), meshed in their own illusion-fed desires, have not yet faced the fact of suffering, and its cause, and the Way which leads to the end of it. Of such men it is said that they stand in their own light and wonder why it is dark. .

The implications of the doctrine of Karma (Cause-Effect) are vast, and frightening to all but the strongest mind. If all that we are is the result of what we have thought, all that we shall be is the result of what we are thinking now. We are building now our to-morrow, creating hour by hour our heaven or hell. There is no such thing as luck or chance, or coincidence, and no such thing as fate. Predestination and freewill, the antitheses beloved of the school debating club, are falsely imagined; we are predestined now by the previous exercise of our own freewill. The world of time and space is newly seen as the workshop of an individual character, for while the whole is greater than its parts, each part perfected is needed for the perfect whole. Only by right action beyond reaction will the individual purge his mind of the old illusion, self; not until the Self we now call 'I' has died past resurrecting will the Self appear which knows itself as One.

4. Self The Teaching of the Buddha on self is clear, yet a number

of western Buddhists and Theravadins ignore this clear tradition in favour of a doctrine of their own. The Atman of the Upanishads is the absolute SELF, and is the property of no man. But this by the Buddha's day had become debased into an immortal entity within each mind of which it was even possible to give the size. Against this view of the Atman (pali: Atta) the Buddha taught the doctrine of non-Atman (pali: Anatta) in which he analysed the thing called man and proved it to contain no single permanent factor, nor anything resembling a changeless and immortal 'soul'. This, however, has been narrowed by later Buddhists to a doctrine

. ()f 'no soul' for which there is neither Scriptural authority

INTRODUCTION 21

nor the support of sense. Examine the five ingredients of the man we know, said the Buddha, and you will find a body (rupa) ; sensation, in the sense of emotional reaction, (vudana) ; the mind's reaction to sense stimuli (sanna) ; the mental processes based on predispositions (sankharas) ; ,and consciousness (vinnana). All these without exception are in a state of flux, and even the body, the grossest of them, is utterly changed each seven years. Where, then, is the 'immortal soul'? If the personality be called the self, it is perishing hour by hour; if the character, the individuality, be called the Self, the same applies, though far more slowly. What, then, of a SELF? If by this be meant the principle of Enlightenment, or Life itself, it is not the property of man or of any man. To the extent that it is part of man, one of his faculties, it is not immortal; to the extent that it is immortal it is not the property of any man. Yet if there .be nothing which, within the illusion of manifestation, grows and moves towards Enlightenment, what of the Noble Eightfold Path to the Goal? Who treads if - what walks on? The answer is consciousness, the integrating factor or Self which, subject like all else to anicca, change, and dukkha, suffering, is unquestionably anatta, lacking a permanent immortal something which separates it from the Whole.

The Way from the unreal to the Reill, from the existing fact of Enlightenment to its realization is long, and no one life on earth or a hundred of them will bring the pilgrim to that goal. Rebirth, not of a changeless soul, but of an everevolving, karma-created bundle of characteristics is accepted by the whole world east of Karachi, and only in the West must text-books of Buddhism give it space. The evolving consciousness achieves successive states of spiritual achievement until the last, to our mortal knowledge, is reached in Buddhahood. Only then is the self entirely dead, to rise no more, and the Self, released from the last of its Fetters, is merged as a dew-drop in the Shining Sea.

S. The Middle Way The doctrine of causation applied to the individual cha

racter is expressed in the Four Noble Truths; the omnipresence of suffering; its cause, selfish desire; its cure, the elimination of that separative desire; and the way to this removal. This way is the Middle Way between extremes. For

22 INTRODUCTION

if manifestation is based on the 'pairs of opposites', tIle way to the Unity from which they sprang must be between them and above them and beyond.

The Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism, acknowledged by all Schools, is the noblest course of spiritual training yet presented to man. It is far more than a code of morality. If the first five steps on the Way may be classed as ethics, the last three are concerned with Bhavana, the mind's development. 'Cease to do evil; learn to do good; cleanse your own heart; -this is the teaching of the Buddhas.' There is here no word of faith, save that which a man has in a guide who tells him of a journey and a goal and a way to it; no word of a Saviour who will make that journey for him. Each must develop his own mind, first by creating the instrument with which to develop its inner powers, and then by using them. The East has always set great store on the inner powers of the mind, knowing that its resources are infinite, and there is no instrument yet invented which can do more than the mind of man can do when its powers are fully developed. And this is but common sense. If there is Mind-Only, there exists in Mind all the power and knowledge of the Universe, and the Siddhis (Pali: Iddhis), or supernormal faculties are only a foretaste of the powers to be unfolded by the man made perfect on a day as yet unborn. 6. Direct seeing into the Heart of Man

The purpose of Buddhism, let it be repeated, is to attain Enlightenment, for oneself and all creation. In the lower stages of this climb all means and devices are legitimate, to be discarded when their use is ended. A raft is useful for crossing a river; he is a fool who bears it on his back when the river is crossed. There comes a time, however, when all devices are seen as hindrances, and even the Scriptures are fetters about the awakening mind. Authority is a term which daily lessens in meaning, and the sole criterion of all value passes within. The faculty of Buddhi (intuition) slowly but steadily awakens, and the world of discrimination, which lives by the dreary comparison of opposites, is steadily left behind. Tolerance widens, compassion deepens, serenity becomes a constant companion which neither the passions nor the problems of the human mind disturb. Certainty comes with intuitive awareness, and though sorrow still be "the

INTRODUCTION 23

portion of the ever-returning night, joy as certainly comes with the morning.

The developed will begins to take the hill straight. The veils fall steadily and there comes an increasing awareness of that which lies beyond all veils. The 'three fires' of greed, anger and illusion begin to die for want of fuelling. The scales turn over in 'conversion', a new birth. The stream is entered, and all effort becomes increasingly 'right' effort. In brief, the faculty of Buddhi is awakening, and the fact that it dwells in all and needs but awakening is cardinal to Buddhism. So far as Buddha-nature is concerned, there is no difference between an enlightened man and an ignorant one. What makes the difference is that one realizes it while the other is ignorant of it.'! Or, mote briefly, in the words of The Voice of the Silence, 'Seek in the impersonal for the eternal man, and having sought him out, look inward - thou art Buddha!' 7. Man's Enlightenment

The process of becoming is a circle; the process of becoming more, of growth, is. a spiral, either up or down according as the growth is towards or away from wholenesss. Buddhism begins with the Buddha's Enlightenment and ends with man's. And the final Goal? We know not, nor is it yet, or likely to be for aeons to come, our immediate concern. The faint of heart will ever seek some resting-place, some weak finality; for the strong, the first and the last word is and ever more will be - Walk On!

1. The Sutra of Wei Lang (Hui-neng), p. 27.

CHAPTBR ONB

The Life of the Buddha *

Gotarno, the Buddha - The Buddha's Task - The Birth ofGotarno - The Great Renunciation - The Enlightenment

THERE are two points of view from which to regard the Buddha and his Teachings. The first is objective and analytic, the way of history. The other is subjective and direct, accepting Gotama as in fact the Buddha, the Awakened One, the new holder of the greatest office in the spiritual hierarchy of mankind. The former is a critical examination of the body of Buddhism; the latter is an intuitive perception of its life. The first is the 'Doctrine of the Eye'; the other the' Doctrine of the Heart'.

Gotama the Buddha was the Buddha because he was Buddha, the Enlightened One, and he who cannot accept this premise will never know more than the shell of Buddhism. Only in the light of this Enlightenment, or such reflection of it as the perceiver in his highest moments is able to perceive, can Buddhism, the Teaching of the Buddha, be understood. The 'scientific' approach to the spiritual flame is blocked by its own limitations. The Buddha's Teachings came from the plane of consciousness which he, by countless lives of effort, had achieved, and he who would understand it must climb as near as he may to the same achievement.

This does not mean that critical analysis is vain. Such intellectual effort removes the false glamour of 'authority', exposes the forced integration of heterogeneous parts into an ill-fitting whole; gives dates and sequence to the development of doctrine. Yet in the end it only tears the flower in pieces, and a beautiful legend written, as legends usually are, in the shorthand of spiritual symbol, has far more life in it, more power, than a dreary text-book of analysed facts. To the extent that Buddhism is true it is, like the essence of Christianity, beyond the accidents of time and place, of fact or history. To the extent that it is untrue, it does not become

26 BUDDHISM more true b y being pinned t o a set o f words produced b y a certain man on such and such a day. Our lives are made, our hearts' enlightenment attained, by stories, lives of example, as all poets, all children not yet mired with analytic thought, and the spiritual leaders of mankind have ever known. The Life and Teaching of the Buddha, like those of Jesus, the Christ, are beyond the accidents of history.

Gotama, the Buddha Who, then, was Gotama, the Buddha? He was a man self

perfected, one who had achieved the mind's Enlightenment. He was the latest of a line of Buddhas, the fourth in the series which guides and guards the cycle of evolution of mankind. By virtue of his office of Samma Sambuddha (Supreme Buddha) he was and is the Patron of the Adepts, the apex of the hierarchy of self-perfected men from whose ranks the spiritual leaders of mankind are drawn.

He was a man, not a Solar Myth, as Coomaraswamy suggests,l save that he was the incarnate Principle of Enlightenment in all men and in all forms of life, 'the Inner Man of all beings ', 2 and as such, in the technical sense of the word, a myth, even as Jesus, who became Christos, the Christ, was incarnate of the same Eternal Principle.

As Tathagata, 'the successor to' his predecessors in office', he had achieved the perfection of his spiritual powers, all petals of the 'thousand-petalled lotus' of his super-personal being having fully opened. 'Strange indeed are the Tathagatasl and endowed with strange powers. Marvellous indeed are the Tathagatas, and endowed with marvellous powers', 3 and 'Deep is the Tathagata, immeasurable, difficult to understand, even like the ocean.' 4

In his life, therefore, he was, when using such powers, the embodiment of his Teaching. 'As the Tathagata speaks, so He does; as He does, so He speaks. Thus, since He does as He says, and says as He does, therefore is He called Tathagata.'5 Hence his explanation to his disciples when he lay dying: 'It may be that in some of you the thought will arise,

I. Hinduism and Buddhism, p. 50. 2. Ibid., p. 73. 3. F. L. Woodward, Some Sayings of the Buddha, p. 260. 4. Quoted in Pratt, The Pilgrimage of Buddhism, p. 13. S. Woodward, Some Sayings of the Buddha, p. 291.

THE LIFE OF THE B UDDHA 27

"The Word of the Master is ended; we have no Teacher more." But it is not thus that you should regard it. The Dhamma (Teaching) which I have given you, let that be your Teacher when I am gone. '1 And even he could not attain Enlightenment for others. (Even) 'Buddhas do but point the way.'2

As a man he was 'friend Gotama' to his fellow seekers. Only when he attained supreme Enlightenment did he assume the title Buddha. Thereafter he was known as Bhagavat (Lord) and would refer to himself as Tathagata.

In this, his last incarnation on earth, his personal character was glorious. Of great physical beauty, his mind was of an equal beauty. His charm was magnetic. 'The venerable Gotama is well born on both sides, of pure descent, is handsome, inspiring trust, fair in colour, fine in presence, stately to behold.'3

Aristocrat by birth, he was at home with all men, highcaste Brahmans, kings and princes, philosophers, warriors, merchants, beggars and prostitutes. His compassion was absolute, and in one instance at least he expressed himself in terms which another Master of Compassion used later. When a man was sick unto death with dysentery, his fellows had neglected him as useless to the Order. 'Brethren,' said the Buddha to those about him, 'ye have no mother and father to take care of you. If ye will not take care of each other, who else, I ask, will do so? Brethren, he who would wait on me, let him wait on the sick.'4

His dignity was unshakeable, his humour invariable. He was infinitely patient as one who knows the illusion of time. When ked how long is an aeon, he answered, 'Just as if, brother, there were a mighty mountain crag four leagues in length, breadth and height, without a crack or cranny, not hollowed out, one solid mass of rock, and a man should come at the end of every century, and with a cloth of Benares, should once on each occasion stroke that rock: sooner, brother, would that mighty mountain crag be worn away by this method, sooner be used up, than the aeon.'6

l. From the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, chap. 6. 2. Woodward, Some Sayings o/the Buddha, p. 300. 3. Pratt, The Pilgrimage 0/ Buddhism, p. 9-10. 4. Woodward, Some Saying. 0/ the Buddha, p. 127-8. S. Woodward, Some Sayings 0/ the Buddha, p. 185.

28 B UDDHISM

The Buddha's Task His task was enormous, to reform the prevailing religion

of his time, which seems to have been an immature yet already corrupt form of Brahmanism, and at the same time to add to the sum total of human wisdom from the boundless store of his own. His teaching was not a break-away from Brahmanism, as countless writers, such as E. E. Power,l have stated; -on the other hand, it was far more original than Indian writers of to-day, such as Coomaraswamy,a declare. Brahman terms were freely used, but given new meanings, and much of the teaching was a purified restatement of truths to be found in the Upanishads. Thus Karma and the doctrine of Rebirth, the unity of life as distinct from its forms, and the common goal of Liberation, were all to be found in the Brahmanism of the Buddha's day, but, as incorporated into the Buddha Dhamma, received an original setting.

The word 'Brahman' is used by the Buddha to indicate not a member of the Brahman caste but that which a Brahman ought to be, and in places the word is used as meaning excellent or perfect, which, in view 9f the average standard of the day, borders on irony.

The Buddha's inner teaching probably differed little, if at all, from that of the initiated Brahmans of his day. 'His teachings, therefore, could not be different from their doctrines, for the whole Buddhist reform merely consisted of giving out a portion of that which had been kept secret from every man outside the "enchanted" circle of Temple-Initiates and ascetics. Unable to teach all that had been imparted to him - owing to his pledges - though he taught a philosophy built upon the groundwork of the true esoteric knowledge, the Buddha gave to the world its outward material body and kept its soul for his Elect.'s This 'soul', the Doctrine of the Heart, is to be found in fragments, usually mutilated, in all the Scriptures of the world. It is the ancient Wisdom to which all Arhats, Rishis and other perfect men achieve. It has a thousand forms, yet is eternally one.

Did the Buddha reveal too much 1 This is the occult 1. Path of the Elder., p. xiii et req. 2. Hinduism and Buddhism, p. 4S. 3. H. P. BJavatsky. The Secret Doctrbte. Vol. I, p. xxi, tat edn.

THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA 29 tradition, and there are hints in the orthodox Scriptures to support it. Obviously no more than a fragment of the Wisdom can be broadcast to the stupid, selfish, material-minded bulk of humanity. Truth .is a sacred trust, and he who reveals it to those unworthy of it bears the karma of his act and that of the evil, which flows from the wrong use of the truth revealed. 'I also, Brethren, have seen these things before, yet I did not reveal them. I might have revealed them, and others would not have believed them, and, if they had not believed me, it would have been to their loss and sorrow.'1

If the Buddha, in his zeal to make available to all men the Wisdom which the Brahmans held exclusively for their own emolument, revealed too much, he paid dearly for the excess of his compassion. The Brahmans were immediately hostile, and although thousands and tens of thousands supported his reforms and innovations, the hard core of the ravished priestcraft won in the end. Hinduism was vastly improved by Buddhism, but after a while, and 1,500 years is not long in the history of the world, the reformer's teaching as such was driven from India.

At the time of Gotama's birth in North-East India, the main power of the Brahmans lay in the North-West. In Kosala in North Bengal the Kshatriya, or warrior, caste was still dominant. Wandering ascetics vied for the ear of those who sought for Reality, and hermits were to be found in caves who taught, to such as accepted them as Guru, or teacher, their own spiritual experience. Animism, polytheism, dualism and even advanced monism, all competed for authority, and in a gentle land whose Indian climate, cooled with the high Himalayan air, lent itself to such speculation, the spiritual soil was ripe for new seed.

The Birth o/Gotama Such were the conditions which 'the Buddha-to-be chose

for his final incarnation. He was born of the Aryan race in the Kshatriya caste of the Sakya clan, whose country lay along the south edge of Nepal. Its capital was Kapilavastn, and it was on a journey from it that his mother, Maya - a name so obviouSly symbolic that one might have expected it - gave birth to a son in the Lumbini Gardens which lie just over the modem border of the Nepal Terai. His father,

1. Woodward, Some Sayinll' of,he Buddha, p. 7.

30 BUDDHISM

Suddhodana, was Raja 'of the Sakya clan, and if not a king, as often described, was a native prince of substance. '

The child was called Siddhartha, the family name being Gotama. The dates of his life are still controversial, but it is probable that he was born in 563 B.C., left home when he was 29, attained enlightenment when he was 35 and passed away in 483 B.C., at the age of 80. But no biography was written for several hundred years after the Life had ended, and the available sources for such information are such a mixture of history and legend as to prove the despair of all historians. As many as four different versions are sometimes given of one event, and as others appear in widely different sequences, only by piecing together a score of passages from various parts of the existing Canon does a cOI).sistent story appear. If, in the form as given us by the English translations, it lacks the incomparable language in which the Gospels were first given to the English ear, it still displays the sweep and rhythm of a great symbolic story, and a nobility, serenity and deep compassion which places the central figure among the foremost spiritual leaders of mankind. For it is of course, symbolic. As the centuries rolled by, each version of the Life acquired an increasing garland of fabulous adventure, miracle and heavenly assistance. But legend is often a poetic form of history, and lifts the story to a plane above the accidents of time and place. The Jatakas (Birth-Stories), many of which reappear in Aesop's and La Fontaine's RabIes, are a history of the evolution of conscio.usness upon this earth as recorded in what, for want of a better term, may be called the esoteric tradition. In the same way the 32 marks of the Great Man ', from which the sage Asita was able to prophesy the glory which awaited the child Siddhartha ; the seven steps to North, East, South and West which the baby took to proclaim to each his incomparable wisdom; his mother's death just seven days from his birth ; the three palaces in which the growing boy lived ; the intervention of Mara, the Tempter, at key points in his life, are all of obvious symbolic meaning, and are easily equated with the symbolic stories of earlier and later Saviours of mankind. Indeed the whole Life, like that of Jesus Christ, may be read as the mystery story of the evolution of man from birth to final attainment.

The boy, we are told, led the normal life of ease of his birth

THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA 31

and calling. At sixteen he won in a contest of arms his wife, Yasodhara, and by her had a son, Rahula. But from earliest childhood he had been unusually self-possessed and never satisfied for long with sensuous delights. He was a man with a mission, and the new -brain soon became aware of the destiny of the man now using it.

The Great Renunciation The story tells how, in spite of his father's efforts to keep

all knowledge of worldly woes from his eyes, the young prince, driving forth from the palace, saw an old man, then a sick man, then a dead man, and at the sight of each asked his charioteer the meaning of what he saw. ' This comes to all men', said the charioteer, and the Prince's mind was troubled that such was the effect of birth, the common cause. Then he saw a recluse with shaven head and a tattered yellow robe. ' What man is this ? ' he asked, and was told it was one who had gone forth into the homeless life. Then follows one of the loveliest passages in the Scriptures. He returned to the palaCe, deeply pondering, and, that night, while his pleasure girls lay sleeping in unbecoming postures at his feet, he revolted from sensual pleasures, and at the same time the flame of compassion awoke within him. Not for the first time, but now with overpowering effect, he felt the positive call to save not only himself but all mankind from birth in the world of suffering. He bade farewell to his sleeping wife and babe, and in the silence of the Indian night went forth with Channa, his charioteer, and Kanthaka, his stallion. At the edge of the forest he alighted, cut off his long black hair with his sword and sent it back to the palace by the hand of Channa. He exchanged his princely robes with those of a beggar, and went forth into the homeless life, alone. . The purpose of his search was clear, the extinguishing of craving, selfish craving, the cause of suffering in this life and of rebirth on the Wheel. It is said that he had recently heard a maiden singing when she fell in love with his beauty a'S he passed her by:

Happy indeed is the Mother, Happy indeed is the Father, Happy indeed is the Wife, Who has such a Husband.

Well spoken, thought the Buddha-to-be. But what is it

32 BUDDHISM

which, extinguished, makes the heart eternally happy ; for flesh will grow old and will die ? He realized that it was lust and craving in all its forms, the extinguishing of which (Nirvana) was the end of suffering. He was then twenty-nine. '

He visited first Alara Kalama, a noted sage, and studied with him, but he found no answer to his heart's imperious demand. So he went to Uddaka, another sage, and received the same reply. He passed through the country of Magadha to the town of Uruvela, and there settled down in a grove of . trees to find Enlightenment. For six long years he meditated, practising the utmost physical austerities until he all but wasted away. He conquered fear ; subdued all lusts of the flesh ; he developed and controlled his mind, but still he did not find Enlightenment. Finally he realized that not in austerities could -truth be found. He decided to eat again, and the five ascetics living with him departed in disgust. He accepted a bowl of curds from a maid, Sugata, and having eaten and bathed, seated himself in the lotus posture at the foot of a tree, determined to achieve without more delay the full fruits of Enlightenment. It was the night of the Full Moon of May, and he was thirty-five.

The Enlightenment The hosts of Mara, the Evil One, approached and claimed

the throne of grass which he had made for himself. The Bodhisattva, the Buddha-to-be, touched earth, calling the earth to witness that the throne was his by right, and the earth gave witness. Mara, his assaults by fire and darkness and all his violence having failed, withdrew. The moon rose and the Blessed One passed, as he had passed a thous!llld times before, into deep meditation.

Now victory was near, the goal of hundreds of lives of effort devoted to one end. He passed in review his former births, the cause of all rebirth and its consequent suffering, the spokes of the Wheel of Rebirth which rolls and rolls unceasingly. He rose in consciousness through the planes and sub-planes of material existence. He linked the various component parts of self to the Self which uses them, and the Self by the faculty of Buddhi (intuition) to the Maha Bodhi (utmost wisdom) of which, in his inmost being, he was a manifestation on earth. Fin3.Ily he bound in one the Self which still is human, and the SELF of pure Enlightenment.

THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA 33

The journey was over, and a new Buddha, the fourth of his line, was born.

He broke into the famous Song of Victory :

Many a house of life Hath held me - seeking ever him who wrought These prisons of the senses, sorrow-fraught; Sore was my ceaseless strife! But now, Thou builder of this Tabernacle - Thou! I know Theel Never-shalt thou build again These walls of pain, Nor raise the roof-tree of deceits, nor lay Fresh rafters on the clay; Broken Thy house is, and the ridge-pole split! Delusion fashioned it! Safe pass I thence - deliverance to obtain.t

The earth which he had called to witness his approach to Buddhahood knew of the victory, and the forces of nature and the gods of heaven rejoiced that another Buddha was born. For seven days he rested under the Bodhi-Tree whose sapling grows on the self-same spot to-day, and the Nagas (Serpent Kings) of the Earth, the symbolic name of the Initiates of Wisdom, approved that Gotama was now the Buddha, and made puja to him.

But the Buddha for the last time was assailed with doubts by Mara, the Evil One. He who ,had given up all to seek release for all, what was the use of his telling all men of the Path which leads to the end of suffering ? Earth trembled and awaited his reply. Then the Buddha-Heart of compassion wakened to man's eternal need. Brahma himself pleaded for mankind.

' Lord, let the Blessed One preach the Dhamma ! May the Perfect One preach the Dhamma ! There are beings whose mental eyes are scarcely darkened by any dust ; if they do not hear the Dhamma they will perish. There will be some who will understand.'

And the All-Enlightened One had pity on Mankind.

[For Bibliography see end of Chapter Two]

1. Sir Edwin Arnold, The Light 01 Asia.

T - B

CHAPTER TWO

The Ministry *

The First Sermon - The First MissiolUlries - The First Retreat - The Return to the Palace - Women admitted to the Order - The Sutta of the Great Decease - The Passing - The Cremation and Relics

THE decision was made. The Buddha would preach the Dhamma to mankind. 'I will beat the drum of the Immortal in the darkness of the world.' But preach to whom ? His earliest gurus, Alara Kalama and Uddaka, had passed away. He decided to teach the five ascetics who had left him when he parted from their austerities. He rose and slowly made his way to Benares. There, in the Deer Park of Isipatana, he found them and they called him ' Friend'. But the Buddha told them of his Enlightenment and they paid him the respect that was due to him.

The First Sermon On the night of the Full Moon of July he preached to

them his First Sermon of ' Setting in Motion the Wheel of Righteousness'. He spoke of the two extremes of sensuality and mortification, and of the Middle Way, the sweetly reasonable Middle Way which lies between ; he taught the Four Noble Truths of suffering and its cause, desire or selfishness, of the removal of that cause, and of the Eightfold Path which leads to the end of suffering. And the leader of the ascetics, Kondanna, ' obtained the pure and spotless Dhamma-Eye ' and was the first to be ordained a disciple of the Tathagata.

There in the Deer Park of Sarnath near Benares is the site where the Buddha proclaimed his Dhamma, ' glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle, glorious in its end'. Soon, the other four ascetics perceived the Truth of the Dhamma and they, too, were ordained. And to them the Buddha preached his Second Sermon, setting forth the famous Anatta doctrine which many in the West, and many of the Southern

THE MINISTRY 35 School of Buddhism in the East, so sadly misunderstand. All the five aggregates of personal being, body, feeling, per

. ception, predispositions of mind, and consciousness alike are prone to suffering, are transient, without a permanent 'soul '. Of the nature of the soul itself he said nothing.

The First Missionaries The number of converts rapidly increased and, mindful of

his resolution to proclaim the Dhamma to all mankind, the Buddha sent them forth into the world with the famous exhortation, ' Go ye forth, 0 Bhikkhus, on your journey, for the profit of the many, for the bliss of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the welfare, the profit, the bliss, of devas (Angel-gods - a parallel evolution to mankind) - and mankind. Go not any two together. Proclaim, 0 Bhikkhus, the Dhamma, goodly in its beginning, goodly in its middle, goodly in its ending. In the spirit and in the letter make ye known the perfect, utterly pure, righteous life. There are beings with but little dust of passion on their eyes, who perish. through not hearing the Dhamma. There will be some who will understand.'! Moreover, he gave these, his first missionaries, the power to ordain their converts in some simple formula which, in its final form, is still repeated by millions of his followers:

I take my refuge in the Buddha, I take my refuge in the Dhamma (Teaching), I take my refuge in the Sangha (Order).

The Buddha himself returned to U.ruvela to keep the rainy season of Yassa. On the way he displayed that genius for an apt and spontaneous parable which a later Teacher used in Palestine. He passed a band of thirty young men who were picnicking with their wives. One of them had no wife, and had brought a woman with him who had stolen their belongings and run away. The young man asked the Buddha whether he had seen such a woman. ' What do you think, young man,' asked the Buddha, ' which were better for you, to seek for the woman or to seek for the Self?' This is the first occasion on which the Self is mentioned as distinct from the ' Not-Self' of the Anatta doctrine.

At Uruvela, he found a group of Fire-Worshippers, headed ,

1. Woodward, Some Sayinlls of the Buddha, p. 30.

36 BUDDHISM

by Kassapa, and to them he preached his famous FireSermon. 'All things ', said the Buddha, 'are on fire ; the eye is on fire. forms are on fire, eye-consciousness is on fire ; the impressions received by the eye are on fire, and whatever sensation originates in the impressions received by the eye is . likewise on fire. And with what are these things on fire? With the fires of lust, anger, and illusion, with these are they 'on fire, and so with the other senses and so with the mind. Wherefore the wise man conceives disgust for the things of the senses, and being divested of desire for the things of the senses, he removes from his heart the cause of suffering.' By this sermon, Kassapa and all hi followers became disciples of the Tathagata.

The First Retreat The Buddha then proceeded to Rajagaha, whither his fame

had preceded him. King Bimbisara came to him with a host of citizens and asked to be taught the Dhamma, and on hearing it he was converted. The Buddha accepted a meal at the palace and was given the park known as the Bamboo Grove for the use of the Order as a permanent retreat. While they were resting there a remarkable incident occurred. A newly ordained disciple, Assaji, met Sariputta, the disciple of another famous ascetic who dwelt near by. Sariputta had a friend Moggallana, and the two men had promised to tell one another when either of them ' attained the immortal '. Sariputta was deeply impressed by Assaji's dignity and self-possession as he moved about the city begging for alms, and asked him, as was customary for one ascetic to another, who was his teacher, and what his teaching might be. Assaji told him that his teacher was Sakyamuni ,(the Sage of the Sakyas), but being but newly ordained himself he could not preach the Dhamma in its entirety. ' Then tell me a little', said the eager Sariputta, and Assaji produced the following remarkable reply:

Of all things which proceed from a cause The Tathagata has explained the cause, And also has explained their ceasing. This the great Adept has proclaimed.

-, --

Sariputta apparently took this to mean 'Whatsoever is a rising thing, that is a ceasing thing ', and there arose in him

THE MINISTRY 37

'the Spotless Eye of the Dhamma', that is, the awakening of the higher consciousness which leads to Enlightenment. Such was the immediate effect on him that his friend Moggallana, on seeing him, knew at once that he had ' attained the Immortal', and he too, being told the Dhamma in the same remarkable formula, attained arahantship. That these two men, later to become the chief disciples of the Tathagata, should achieve such attainment at second-hand, as it were, and by such a formula is difficult to accept utiless it be, as the esoteric tradition tells, that a number of men of high attainment had earned the right to be on earth at the time of the Master's final incarnation, and were therefore 'ripe' for such an experience.

The Return to the Palace By now, the Raja Suddhodana was longing to see his son

again, and sent him repeated messages. Finally, when spring had come, the Buddha returned to Kapilavastu with a train of followers, and for the first time since the Enlightenment saw his father and wife and child. And the story tells how Rahula was sent by his mother to the glorious figure in the ellow robe, who stood with downcast eyes at the palace door. The boy asked for his inheritance and the Buddha, his father, turning to Sariputta, said, ' Receive him into the Order.' Thus did the heir to the throne of the Sakyas receive his spiritual inheritance.

The Master returned to Rajagaha, and to him came Anathapindika, a wealthy merchant of Savatthi. Being converted, he built a resting-place at every league of the way from Rajagaha to Savatthi, and there presented the Order with the Jetavana Grove as a third retreat, buying it from Prince Jeta with as much gold as would cover the ground. The Buddha thanked him by receiving him as a disciple, and the Monastery built in the Jetavana Grove became his headquarters for the rest of the Ministry.

About this time Visakha, the wife of a guild-master of Savatthi, who was converted to the Dhamma as a girl, gave to the Order her gorgeous jewelled headdress which, when sold, provided funds for yet another retreat. Thus householders of both sexes . as well as kings and princes gave their best to the Order in exchange for the Dhamma which leads all men to the end of suffering.

38 BUDDHISM The Buddha's fame as a Teacher and even as an arbitrator

quickly spread over North-East India. On one occasion he averted a local war. In the Burmese life of the Buddhal appears the following. Would that the modern leaders of men were equally amenable to reason!

It is recorded that two princes were once about to engage in a terrible battle in a quarrel that took place about a certain embankment constructed to keep in water. Between these kings and their assembled armies Buddha suddenly appeared and asked the cause of the strife. When he was completely informed upon the subject he put the following questions:

'Tell me, 0 kings! is earth of any intrinsic value?' 'Of no value whatever', was the reply. 'Is water of any intrinsic value?' 'Of no value whatever.' 'And the blood of kings, is that of any intrinsic value?' 'Its value is priceless.' 'Is it reasonable', asked the Tathagata, 'that that which is

priceless should be staked against that which has no value whatever?'

The incensed monarchs saw the wisdom of this reasoning and abandoned their dispute.

Women admitted to the Order It was not only men that came to him. Women claimed to

be admitted to a female branch of the Order, and the story tells how Mahaprajapati, the Buddha's stepmother, on the death of his father cut off her hair and, shaving her head, appeared before him in the yellow robes of the Order. Again and again the Buddha refused, and it was "through the insistence of Ananda that they finally gained admission. Even then the female order of Bhikkhunis was founded only under strict and humiliating rules, and the Buddha is reported to have said that their admission would materially shorten the life of the Buddhist religion. Whether he truly made such a prophecy we do not know, but his attitude towards women is clearly shown in a delicious example of his sense of humour. Ananda, as the Buddha lay on his death-bed, asked:

"-

'How are we to conduct ourselves, Lord, with regard to women?'

1 . Bigandet. The Life or Legend of Gaudama, 'p. 191.

TH MINISTRY 'Do not see them, Ananda! ' ' But if we should see them, what are we to do ?' 'Abstain from speech.' 'But if they speak to llS, Lord, what are we to do?' ' Keep wide awake, Ananda!'

39

Ananda and" Devadatta were cousins of the Buddha, the former becoming his personal attendant for the last twentyfive years of his life, and the latter assuming, no doubt with the assistance of later legends, the role of Judas. Consumed with jealousy at hls. cousin's position, Devadatta managed to cause a split in the Sangha, and at one time created a serious dissension by winning Ajatasattu, the son of King Bimbisara, from allegiance to the Buddha. It is said that, having failed to acquire the power he craved, he plotted to k.i11 the Buddha, and, after hired assassins had failed, attempted the appalling deed himself. The most famous of these attempts, often portrayed in Buddhist art, was the letting loose of a ferocious elephant on the road along which his cousin was to come. The Buddha was warned of the attempt but insisted upon proceeding. The elephant rushed at him, but the Buddha roused in him the quality of Metta, lovingkindness, and on reaching him the elephant knelt down in homage, while the Buddha passed upon his way.

Thereafter, Devadatta renewed his attempts to cause a schism in the Order, and actually persuaded a number of Bhikkhus to leave. Then Buddha sent Moggallana and Sariputta to preach to them, and they returned to the fold. Later, it is said, Devadatta repented, was received into the Order again, and died.

So the Ministry continued, and for forty-five years the Master moved from place to place in North-East India, organizing the expansion of the Order, and preaching to all who came to him. None was refused. Ambapali, a noted and beautiful courtes.an, was treated with the same respect as any of the kings who came to visit him, and having secured the Blessed One's consent to dine with him, she refused to sell the privilege for a large sum to the Licchavi Princes. They tried to woo the Buddha from his promise and, having failed, departed, not pleased at having been ' outdone by the Mango girl '. Ambapali presented the Order with her park and mansion for Yet another retreat.

40 BUDDHISM

The Sulla 0/ the Great Decease The last three months of the Ministry are recorded in some

detail in the Maha-Parinibbana-Sutta, which is the Pall name for 'the Sermon of the Great Passing'. As might be expected, the Bnddha's utterances in the closing stages of his last life on earth are carefully preserved. In his last retreat he was taken ill. Ananda was alarmed, and expressed the hope that the Exalted One would not pass away until he had left instructions concerning the Order. But the Buddha announced that he had no such intention, saying, ' Surely, Ananda, should there be anyone .who harbours the thought "It is I who will lead the Community", it is he who should lay doWn instructions concerning the Order I ' He made it clear that he was about to pass away, and thereupon. delivered one of the most famous speeches in religious history - 'Therefore, 0 Ananda, be ye islands unto yourselves. Take the Self as your refuge. Take yourself to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Dhamma as an island. Hold fast as a refuge to the truth. Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves . . . And whosoever, Ananda, shall take the Self as an island, taking themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to Truth as their refuge, it is they, Ananda, who shall reach the very topmost height - but they must be anxious to learn.'

The Master recovered from his illness. Later, when speaking to Ananda of his coming death, he consoled him for his obvious grief, and said, ' But now, Ananda, have I not formerly declared to you that it is in the very nature of all things near and dear to us to pass away ? How, then, Ananda, seeing that whatever is brought into being contains within itself the inherent necessity of dissolution, how can it be that such a being (as the visible Gotama) should not be dissolved ?' And he told Ananda that within three months he would pass away. Thereafter, he went with him to a meeting-place in the forest and announced to those assembled his intention of leaving them. 'Behold now, 0 Bhikkhus, I exhort you, saying, All component things must grow old. Work out your own salvation with diligence ! '

The Passing Thereafter the Buddha proceeded to Pava and halted at the

Mango Grove of Cunda, the blacksmith. Cunda invited the

THE M INISTRY 41

Master and his brethren to dine at his house on the following day. For this purpose, he prepared a special meal for him, and it is sometimes said that the Buddha died thereof. The word used for the principal ingredient of this dish means pig's flesh, or perhaps pig's food, such as truffles, and more than one writer has pointed out the absurdity of taking this literally. That a man such as Gotarna, the Buddha, of perfect mental and physical purity and in full possession of his faculties, should die of indigestion through eating pork is absurd. But if the pork be taken as symbolic of Hindu doctrine, too much of which he had revealed, it does make sense.

Having eaten this meal, he went on his way to the Sala Grove of the Mallas, and having arrived there said, ' Spread for me my couch, Ananda ' (for he had to eat and digest the products of his indiscretion). 'I am weary and would fain lie down.' ' Even so, Lord ', said the venerable Ananda, and the Exalted One lay down on his right side and was mindful and self-possessed. The Bhikkhus assembled about him and the dying Gotama noticed that Ananda was not among them, but stood a way off, weeping because his Master was about to pass away and he had not attained Arhatship. The Master sent for him and comforted him, saying, 'For a long time, Ananda, you have been very near to me by acts of love. You have done well, Ananda. Be earnest in effort and you too .shall be free from the cankers of sensuality, of becoming, of false views and ignorance.' And he sent to the nearby village of Kusinara to inform the Mallas that the Tathagata was about to pass away. The Mallas came to him and Ananda presented them to the Master, family by family, in the first watch of the night. And when men came to him to be received into the Order, he still accepted them and gladdened them with discourse on the Dhamma. The Buddha asked the Bhikkhus if there were any among them who had any doubt concerning the Dhamma and the Eightfold Path, and none replied. Then again the All-Enlightened One addressed the Brethren, saying, ' Decay is inherent in all. component things ! Work out your own salvation with diligence.' These were the last words of the Tathagata. Thereafter, he entered the first of the Jhanas or higher states of consciousness, and so the second, the third and the fourth ; he passed still further into the realms of consciousness which none but a Buddha, an All-Enlightened One, may know.

42 BUDDHISM Thereafter he descended to the fourth stage of conscious

ness and immediately passed away. Thus Gotama the Buddha ended his last incarnation and passed from the eyes of men.

The Cremation and Relics Anuruddha, the Elder, exhorted the Brethren not to '

lament. 'IT all that is born contains within itself the seeds of dissolution, how is it possible that this body, too, shall not be dissolved ?' Ananda sent for the Mallas of Kusinara, who, after paying homage, seven days later cremated the remains. The ashes were divided, it is said, into ten parts, and given to the Rajas of the lands where the Buddha had lived and died. Stu pas or dagobas (reliquary chambers) were erected over them, and all too soon the respect and worship of these relics grew into a cult. Even to-day the undoubted relics of Gotama the Buddha receive a respect which he, it would seem, would be the first to deplore. Only recently the relics of Sariputta and Moggallana, which had reposed in the Victoria and Albert Museum .in London since being taken from the Sanchi Stupa in the middle of last century, were returned to India via Ceylon, to be re-interred with immense veneration in the Stupa whence they came. Of the ten Stupas'said to have been erected over the ashes of Gotama, few have been identified with any certainty. A Stupa in Bhattibrolu, however, in the province of Madras, was found to contain a crystal phial, labelled as containing relics of the Buddha, and the Stupa itself is at least of the first or second century B.C.1 The relics were presented by Lord Ronaldshay, then Viceroy of India, to the Maha Bodhi Society, and in due course a Vihara, or Temple Hall, was built in Calcutta at the headquarters of this famous Society to receive them.

Relics lead to pilgrimages, but of the four sites for Buddhist pilgrimage two only are easily found. The Lumbini Gardens, where Gotama was born, lie in the difficult Nepal Terai, and Kusinara, where the Buddha passed away, has little to show, but Buddha Gaya, the site of the Enlightenment, and the Deer Park at Sarnath, near Benares, the site of the Buddha's 'setting in motion the Wheel of the Law', are immensely popular, and pilgrims come from all parts of the Buddhist world to visit them

1. Ronaldshay, Lands 01 the Tluuukrbolt, p. 87.

THE MINISTRY 43 The beauty and peace of Buddha Gaya is marred by un

fortunate influences, for the Temple is still, in spite of fifty years of Buddhist pleading, to a large extent Hindu-controlled. but Samath, now maintained by the Maha Bodhi Society, is one of the spiritual centres of Modem India, and there may be found some measure of the peace of heart which comes to those who follow in the footsteps of Gotama, the Buddha, the All-Enlightened One.

BIBLIOG RAPHY

FOR CHAPTERS ONE AND TWO

Arnold, Sir Edwin. The Light of Asia. Brewster, E. H. The Life ofGotama the Buddha. Bigandet. The Life or Legend of Gaudama (from the Burmese). Cleather, Mrs A. L., and Crump, Basil. Buddhism the Science of

Life. Coomaraswamy, Ananda. Buddha- and the Gospel of Buddhism.

Hinduism and Buddhism. Davids, Dr T. W. Rhys. Buddhism (S.P.C.K.).

Buddhism, Its History and Literature (Putnam). Early Buddhism.

Davids, Mrs Rhys. What was the Original Gospel in Buddhism ? Grousset, Rene. In the Footsteps of the Buddha. Hackmann, H. Buddhism as a Religion. Lillie, Arthur. The Popular Life of Buddha. Olcott, H. S. The Buddhist Catechism. Pratt, J. B. The Pilgrimage of Buddhism. Radhakrishnan, S. Indian Philosophy, Vol. I. Reischauer, A. K. 'Buddhism' (in The Great Religions of the World,

ed. Jurji). Rockhill. Life of the Buddha (from the Tibetan). Saunders, Kenneth. Epochs in Buddhist History.

A Pageant of Asia. Singh, Iqbal. Gotama Buddha. Smith, Vincent. Asoka: The Buddhist Emperor of India. Thomas, E. J. The Life of Buddha in Legend and History.

The History of Buddhist Thought. Valisinha, Devapriya. Buddhist Shrines in India.

[For Scriptures, see General Bibliography.]

CHAPTER THREE

The Rise of the Two Schools

The Emperor Asoka - The Third Council - The Origin of the Mahayana - Complementary Differences - Nagasena and King Milinda - The Fourth Council -Famous Mahayana Scriptures - The Prajiia-Paramita - Amida and the Pure Land- The Transference of Merit - Mind-Only - The Decline of Buddhism in India

A s soon as the ' lamp of wisdom had been blown out by the wind of impermanence ', a Council of the Sangha was convened at Rajagaha (Sanskrit : Rajagriha) to settle, if it were possible, the contents of the three Pitakas, or Baskets, of the Canon. The venerable Kassapa presided ; Upali, the oldest disciple, repeated the Rules of Discipline of the Order (the Vinaya-pitaka) ; Ananda recited the Sutta-pitaka (the Basket of Sermons), and Kassapa himself recited the Abhidhamma, or the Pitaka of metaphysics, psychology and philosophy, most of which, as it exists to-day, is a later commentary.

A second Council was held at Vesali about a hundred years later. A section of the Sangha, considering the existing Rules too irksome, demanded that a number of them be relaxed, but, being defeated, this ' progressive ' party, probably the Mahasanghikas, seCeded, leaving the Sthaviras, the forebears of the Theravadins of to-day, in control.

The main doctrinal difference between the two parties seemS to have been the means of attaining Buddhahood, the orthodox Elders maintaining that it was the fruit of strict observance of the Rules, and the unorthodox minority holding, as the Mahayana holds to-day, that Buddhahood already dwells within, and only needs developing. The defeated minority held a Council of their own, and from this dichotomy within the Sangha may be traced the manifold sects into which the corpus of ' Buddhism ' was split within a hundred years or so of its foundation. The historicity of these two Councils is impugned by certain scholars, but it is difficult

, .

46 BUDDHISM to see why such a host of detail should have been invented about matters which may quite easily have occurred.

The Emperor Asoka Little is known of Buddhism for the next hundred years,

but in 270 B.C. there came to the throne of India one of the greatest men in history, Asoka Maurya. Asoka was the grandson of Chandragupta, an army officer who, at the news of Alexander's death in Babylon, defeated the Greek forces left in India and founded an Indian Empire. Asoka, like his father, continued to expand these imperial conquests until, revolted by the horrors of war, he was converted to the Dhammll and became an upasaka, a lay adherent of the Order. Thereafter, as head of ' Church' and State, he rapidly converted Buddhism from a teaching popular in north-east India to a world religion.

The Buddhism which he taught was practical morality backed by his own example, and although he was later or

. dained a Bhikkhu he spoke as a layman speaking to laymen, leaving the niceties of doctrine to the more learned Brethren. The effect of his conversion was tremendous, and his dynamic mind was felt in every comer of the Empire. In the life of this greatest of India's kings, the friend of man and beast, we see what the Dhamma, bereft of its monastic limitations, can do for a nation. Converted by the horrors of war, Asoka became a man of peace, and called upon his subjects and upon neighbouring countries to accept this ' greatest of gifts ', the Dhamma of filial piety, of brotherly kindness to all living things, of justice and truth, of tolerance and strenuous endeavour after the higher life. Setting a noble example in his own care for his people, he built for them hospitals, dug wells and reservoirs, and everywhere built glorious Stupas, commemorating not only the life of Sakyamuni but that of former Buddhas ; and in their honour he stimulated India to produce an art unsurpassed in her history. By such means he united his people in the Dhamma and Buddhism became the established religion of India.

Asoka was an ardent missionary. We know from one of the innumerable pillars which he erected throughout his vast dominion that he sent imperial messengers to all other parts of India, as well as to Syria, Egypt, Cyrene, ,Macedonia and Epirus. The most important of these missions, however, if

THE RISE OF THE TWO S CHOOLS 47

such they may be called, was that to Ceylon, described in the next chapter. In his own country he set an example of benevolent dictatorship which has never since been equalled. His power was absolute, and exercised, it seems, entirely for good. He signed himself on his edicts as Piyadasi, The Humane', and by his kindliness to all men and to all living things, his tolerance for all points of view, and his powerful exhortations to all men to live the Buddha-life, he set an example which few, if any, of the rulers of history have eyen attempted to attain. The Third Council

It is said that under his auspices a third Council was held at his capital, Pataliputra, under the chairmanship of Tissa, son of Moggali. Its purpose was partly to suppress a number of heresies whose exponents, probably Brahman pretenders, were causing dissensions in the Order by their loose teaching and even looser lives, and partly once more to revise and confirm the Canon. Whether such a Council was held under the patronage of Asoka, or, as some suggest, in his grandfather's reign, is uncertain. The Northern Schools make no mention of it; if it was held, it was probably a sectional Conference of the Theravada only, and a substantial split was already in existence. Meanwhile, the reactionary Brahman forces were gathering strength, and after Asoka's death his Empire was soon overthrown. Brahman teachings began to filter back into the religion from which they had for a time been ousted. Buddhism, from its outset fatally tolerant of all other teachings, even when antithetical to its own, made little effort to stem the process, and soon a number of sects were exhibiting Brahman doctrines which were unknown in the earlier Teaching.

This process was undoubtedly one of the formative influences in the rise of the Mahayana or Northern School of Buddhism. The nature and strength of the other causes will always be a matter for argument, and though contributory factors which led to the division can be examined separately, the interaction of the several streams of influence is impossible to define. Even the origin and meanings of the terms Mahayana and Hinayana is uncertain. Yana means literally career, with a secondary meaning of vehicle ; Maha means great' as distinct from Hina, small ' . The terms were invented by Mahayanists, who claimed that theirs was acareer or course

48 BUDDHISM

of life large enough to bear all mankind to salvation ; the various sects of the Hinayana, of which the best known is the Theravada, the Doctrines of the Elders, claimed to teach the Buddha-way as pointed out by the Master.

The Origin o/the Mahayana The two extreme suggestions as to the origin of the Maha

yana are, on the one hand, that it was the esoteric doctrine of the Buddha as taught to his Elect, and on the other, that it was a collection of deplorable heresies by which the pure

- teaching of the Master was all too soon defiled. There is truth in both. The Mahayana Canon contains a larger proportion of the esoteric Wisdom than any other religion, and has always adhered more closely to the 'Heart' as distinct from the 'Eye' doctrine, the eternal life rather than the changing form of the Message. On the other hand, much of the teaching to be found to-day in the Mahayana schools is, on the face of it, the exact antithesis of the Message as recorded in the Pali Canon.

Another, and perhaps more helpful, approach to the problem is the psychological. More than one writer had pointed out that the rise of the Mahayana as a revolt from the Hinayana was inevitable. The Indian mind, already heir to some of the noblest achievements of mystical reasoning, could never be long content with the moral philosophy of the Southern School. Low-lighted as it is with the Puritan lamp of self-suppression, and largely arid of the poetry, spiritual excitement and the sense of humour of many of the Mahayana schools, such 'a cold, passionless metaphysics devoid of religious teaching could not long inspire enthusiasm and joy. The H